To be soulcentric is to seek out the ways soul attempts to guide our relationships and individual development. It is to envision the principal goal of maturation to be the conscious discovery and embodiment of our human soul our unique place in the more-than-human world of mountains, rivers, critters, farms, businesses, and schools.

To be egocentric is to treat the self as an isolated, competitive entity, an autonomous agent with minimal relationship or obligation to other people or the larger world.

In an egocentric society, how can you, as a soulcentric parent of pre-teens, optimise the social, psychological, and educational environment in which your child learns and grows?

There are two things you can do: protect your family from egocentric influences, and create a soulcentric lifestyle. When enough families have done this, our culture will shift fundamentally and radically with or without the support of governments, large corporations, schools, or religious organisations.

Creating a Shelter from Egocentrism
Minimise or eliminate children's exposure to TV. Most programming is bad enough, but the underlying message of the ads are worse (the way to personal happiness and social success is physical appearance, conformity, and commercial products). If you choose to continue living with a TV, use it rarely or only for viewing selected videos or high quality programs that occasionally appear on ABC or other networks. If your children do view any programs, watch them together. Be aware of your desired outcome in watching the show and create a dialogue with your children around that theme.

Limit video games and movies watched at home, too, for the reasons listed above, and because your children need to have plenty of time to exercise their own imaginations with other children, you, nature, books, and the arts.

Be selective about which movies children see, video games they play, and music they hear at home and, to the extent possible, elsewhere, and make it a habit to talk to them about the values implied in particular films, games, and songs.

Have a few nights a week when computers are off-limits and activities are encouraged that creatively rely on imagination, emotion, the senses, and independent critical thinking.

Be discriminating about the books your children read and the stories you read or tell them. What sort of values and lessons are embedded? As Mary Pipher notes, Most of the stories children hear are mass-produced to induce them to want good things instead of good lives.

Limit the amount of time your kids spend in organised, high-pressure, winning-obsessed sports (so they don't become preoccupied with aggressive competition and performance, and so they have time for all the other dimensions of growing).

When contemplating the purchase of the latest technological wonder, ask first not about its affordability but about its effect on family life and sound childhood development.

Avoid gifting your children with commercial toys and products. As much as possible, allow their rewards to be experiences naturally engendered by interacting imaginatively with the world with other children, with you, with nature, and the arts. When you do give them things, let those be items that richly engage their imagination, senses, thinking, and feelings.